The Selosse Manuscript

A double-CD of the entire contents of this remarkable book has been recorded by Terence Charlston for Deux-Elles Recordings and will be released later this year (2009). The music is for keyboard instruments and has been recorded using a double manual harpsichord after Ioannes Ruckers, 1624, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar made by Andrew Garlick, Buckland St. Mary, 1998; a double-fretted clavichord after Donat clavichord, no. 12 in the Leipzig University Museum of Musical Instruments, dated c. 1700, made by Karin Richter, 1997;  and the historic organ of St. Botolph’s Aldgate, London, built by Renatus Harris, c.1702, reinstalled in the new building by John Byfield, 1744 and restored by Goetze and Gwynn, 2006 to the 1744 specification. .

The source

The Selosse Manuscript was discovered in 2004 by Peter Leech. It contains keyboard pieces apparently compiled by ‘Padre Antonio Mason, alias Seloss’—probably the Jesuit musician Antonio Mason alias Selosse (1621-87), who was active at the English Jesuit College of Saint Omer in the 1680s. Selosse had a nephew, also Antoine, (b. 1653) who is not known to have been a musician but who came to England and who was chaplain to the Goring family and imprisoned after the reign of James II. A further Selosse, is known to have worked at Saint Lambert, Liege from about 1651 until 1657. Eleven pieces are also found in the Hogwood manuscript, and the two sources are clearly related.

The book probably dates from the 1680s. It is in oblong quarto format and measures 16.7 x 21 cm. It is bound in brown calf with a finely-tooled and gilded spine typical of library bindings c.1680-1720, possibly French. The binding is very likely original. It contains 189 pages pre-ruled with four six-line staves, 145 with music written on them. Two pages have been cut out after page 146. The top stave of the next page, page 147, has a single treble clef in brown ink written in a later style (and presumably a later hand). This clef is placed erroneously on the second line up from the bottom of the first stave. A single worm hole marks each page from page 163 to the end (including flyleaves). Music has been neatly copied in good quality brown ink by the same, professional hand throughout. Pagination has been added at a later stage in pencil by an unknown hand.

Two types of copying paper have been used: high-quality material for the music and thinner paper for the two flyleaves at the front and back. The watermarks on the music paper is the Arms of Amsterdam and on the flyleaves is of the ‘Dutch Lion’ type, countermarked with the initials ‘AJ’, presumably indicating the mill of Abraham Janssen (1635-1710), whose Puymoyen factory operated from around 1660 until his death. The first flyleaf page is inscribed ‘Mary Cicely Tichborne her book/given her by M^r. Toussant la poülle’ and the fifth flyleaf page has the inscription ‘Cuiou Toccata per il Cembalo del Padre Antonio Mason, alias Seloss’.

Literature: C. Bailey, ‘Restoration keyboard music in the digital age’, Early Music, 2009, p. 318-320; P. Leech, ‘A New Source of Seventeenth Century Keyboard Music – the Antoine Selosse Manuscript’, 12^th Biennial Conference on Baroque Music (Warsaw, July, 2006); The Selosse Manuscript. Seventeenth-Century Jesuit Keyboard Music, ed. P. Leech (Bicester, 2008); A. Woolley, English Keyboard Sources and their Contexts, c. 1660-1720 (Ph.D thesis, The University of Leeds, 2008).

Performer’s commentary

The following is a commentary on each piece in the collection. The numbers in bold refer both to the track numbers CD recording and piece numbers in Peter Leech's HH Edition of the MS. 

The repertoire chosen for inclusion in Selosse’s remarkable book covers a broad spectrum of the genres popular in 17^th century Europe and reveals a wide range of national influences and styles. Although the volume consists of mainly dance pieces, it opens with three sets of variations and a fugal work and has another block of non-dance music about two thirds of the way through. The dances (often with variations of their own) are grouped by key and 14 pieces are also present in a manuscript belonging to Christopher Hogwood (GB-CAMhogwood, M1471), an English source closely related to Selosse. Few pieces have a specific title and no composers are named. The authorship of only one piece can be stated with confidence: Bull’s popular The King’s Hunt 3.

While the choice of instrumentation is ultimately an artistic decision, the Selosse manuscript contains a number of significant clues to guide the performer. Registration instructions in piece 20, for example, indicate that one or more sections may be a collection of organ music. Pieces 2, 4, and 20-28 are performed on an original 18^th-century English organ and in a manner which, speculatively, a foreign organists visiting London might have adopted. Likewise, the considerable number of concordances with the Hogwood manuscript, which describes 31 and 32 as ‘fitt for the manicorde’, suggested a further important colour, the clavichord. The clavichord was undoubtedly in use in England and on the continent at the time the book was being compiled and its place in the performance traditions of the time may be much more significant than the paucity of surviving instruments suggests. The remaining pieces are played on a plucked keyboard instrument, in this instance, a Frano-Flemish style harpsichord.

 1 The monumental set of variations on the ‘La Folia’ ground which open the collection deploy a rich panoply of textures and technical devices. They run to 22 variations including the opening statement and the theme is written as mainly equal crotchets throughout. The set is very similar to its concordance in the Hogwood MS, although Selosse is 3 variations longer, and only 12 sections are shared between the two sources. The two sources also disagree on certain small details of the text. Of the 11 variations unique to Selosse, nos. 14 and 15 are particularly expressive, and the reordering and reworking of the last third of the work, arguably strengthens its conclusion. 

2 In common with other ciacconas of the period (e.g. Storace for keyboard and Francesco Corbetta’s guitar music), each two bar repetition forms part of a larger phrase structure in which easily recognisable motives, rhythms and bass melodies recur at regular intervals. Although the broken chord patterns (bars 69 onwards and 101), off-beat right hand quavers (bars 55-68) and notated over-holding (bars 49-50) have been traditionally thought of as indicators of performance on a plucked keyboard, ciacconas were written for the organ (e.g. Buxtehude and Pachelbel) and this piece can work equally well on both media. The continuous repetition of two-bar phrases is carefully planned and can be thought of as having a basic structure of five variation groups each with largely new material, interspersed by ‘refrains’ in which previously heard material returns.

 3 Bull’s The King’s Hunt, here copied without title or ascription and some 50 years after the composer’s death in Antwerp, remained popular throughout the 17^th century. This G major variation set has an initial theme followed by two variations. The choice of accidentals is far from clear and I have tried to follow the source, which has no F sharp in the key signature, as closely as possible with occasional C sharps drawn from Tregian (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, GB-Cfm Mu.Ms.168, pp. 250–2) and Cosyn (F-Pc, Rés. 1185, no. 25, pp. 104–10).

4 This free ‘toccata’ opens with a canzona followed by a tripla section with three mesuration changes and a final slow duple based on the rising tetrachord.

5–6 Suite in C major.

5 Courante and variation. Both so titled in MS. Unusually the courant has no upbeat, although the second note is syncopated. The wide spacing of treble melody and two-part left hand accompaniment is typical of much English Restoration keyboard music (e.g.Playford’s Musicks Hand-maid, 1663/1678 and Locke’s Melothesia, 1673). The largely two-part texture of the variation is more Italian in character with running quavers and semiquavers.

6 Sarabande and variation. Both so titled in MS. A lyrical sarabande with one six bar phrase (second half, beginning) to break the expected periodicity of 8 bars. The variation is in 9/8 time, jig-like, and close in texture and rhythmic drive to some of John Blow’s harpsichord music (see Musica Britannica, vol. 73, nos. 17 and 46).

7–11 Suite in F major.

7 The characteristic three part texture of the Allemande (treble melody and two-part left hand accompaniment) is typical of Restoration keyboard music. Its melodic material is largely figural and it has an unusual modulation scheme (the conclusion of the first half in the tonic is unusual) with occasional chromaticism in the melody (made more poignant in meantone temperament). The remaining dances are all variations using the same harmonic outline, a practice also found in English keyboard music (John Roberts and F-Pc Rés 1185) but probably continental in origin (Ebner, Buxtehude, Böhm, etc. and French music in English sources such as La Barre). 8 The four-part texture of this Sarabande might be considered un-English and its harmonic finesse and rhythmic poise suggest French inspiration (Chambonnières, for example). The courante 9 is typical of the variation style associated with John Roberts (see 14) while the two-part 10 is very different, perhaps a menuet or another courante. The final variation 11 is in 9/8 time and closely related to the variation of 6. The two-part invention or bicinium aspect of this piece is emphasised by the hemiola effects in bars 21–22. 

12 A set of 11 strains on an 8-bar chaconne ground subdivided into two binary form halves both of 4-bars. Andrew Woolley has drawn attention to several other keyboard versions (GB- Ob, MS Mus. Sch. e. 426, ff. Iv-2, apparently in the hand of the German musician Andreas Roner and copied in England around 1710; US-Cn, Case MS VM 2.3 E58r, ff. lAv-2A, 'Elizabeth Roper her Booke 1691', but apparently copied in France; GB-Cfm, MU MS 653, p. 21, and GB-Lbl, MS Mus. 1625, f. 41v.) 

13-14 This G major suite is also found in the Hogwood MS and has been associated with the name John Roberts on stylistic grounds (see Candace Bailey, The Keyboard Music of John Roberts. New York: Broude Trust, 2003, nos 4 and 5; and 17, which also exhibits some of Bailey’s diagnostic features.) Like 9 and 15, the courante is followed by a variation which breaks the harmony into flowing quaver patterns. There is a case for interpolating these variations as the repeat of each half of the original courante. Only the variations of 27 and 28 are interpolated on this recording and the remainder are performed successively. The C and D sharps in 14 are taken from Hogwood. 

15 Another courante and variation pair similar to 14 and also found in the Hogwood MS. The Selosse copyist omitted one bar in the first piece (between bars 32 and 33) and miscopied bars 12–24 of the variation. These have been supplied from Hogwood. Again, the plangeant effect of certain melodic and harmonic inflections is heightened in meantone tuning. The variation is stylistically similar to 9, one of two pieces in the book possibly by Roberts (see 13-14).

 16–19 Suite in D major. 16 is a prelude combining both measured and unmeasured notation as found in the French clavecinistes such as Le Bègue in his first book of 1677. The opening four notes of 17 meet one of Bailley’s criteria for attribution to John Roberts. The syncopations of the first half of 18 may have been inspired by Locke’s Rant (Melothesia, 1673) although its second half has entirely new material. Bar 13 contains the only appearance in the MS of the wavy vertical line, usually used to indicate arpeggiation. Quite why it appears only here in the manuscript is unclear. It is performed as a continuous breaking of the chord, an interpretation suggested by Prendcourt (GB-Y MS.M.16 (s). p. 12), a contemporary German player who spent the majority of his working life in Britain.

 At the end of the seventeenth century the Restoration organ voluntary evolved in style and form to accommodate the new, European baroque idiom. It emerged in the 18^th century in its familiar two-movement structure (slow-fast), as in the voluntaries of the celebrated London organist, John Stanley. Such pieces reflect contemporary registration practices, which exploited the solo possibilities of reeds and flues to imitate the human voice, the virtuosity of treble instruments and the grand orchestral ceremonial of trumpets, horns and drums. No doubt an organist was expected to match the musical material of his playing to his choice of stops. The next group of six pieces (20–25) demonstrate ways in which this might have been achieved.

 20 The vox humana effect (here a solo reed stop) is called for from bar 14 in the manuscript. The accompanying fonds d’orgue texture continues from this point only in the left hand and, in this performance, ends with all four voices on the solo reed.

 21 Following the registration indication in number 20, this fête champêtre is perform antiphonally between the reeds of the three manuals. The slur in bar 1 may indicate a ‘scotch-snap’ rhythm. The downward arpeggios and semi-quaver figures can be found in Italian toccatas from Stradella and A. Scarlatti onwards and in German organ music by Buxtehude, Böhm and J.S. Bach. 

 22 This Fuga appears to be based on the Gregorian chant Ite Missa est (Leech) and a later hand has obscured its full title, perhaps to conceal this fact. The performance registration is inspired by the French dialogue pour les grands jeux, selected from an English stop list as, perhaps, a contemporary Frenchman might have done—reeds and tierce tanks with the tremulant drawn throughout. Where the right and left hand solos are free of accompanying voices, I play these on the louder manual.

 The next three pieces are typical of the faster, second movement of eighteenth-century English organ voluntaries.

 23 A récit for the right hand or, as the English would have called it, a Cornet Voluntary, which is performed with the melody divided between the great and swell cornets as an echo. To accommodate this idea further, bar 22 is played twice.

 24 The bergamasca is one of the older dance variation forms in the manuscript and was strongly associated with Italian and North German players. It is performed with a récit de nasard registration.

 25 This lovely piece mixes chaconne-like rhythms with a ground-bass structure. The basic harmonic shape is I–VI– IV–V. The ground structure is less rigid after bar 21. As with 23 and 24, the right hand becomes more ornate as the piece goes on and divides into smaller note values. The texture (right hand melody, often high, contrasted with a low, two-part left hand accompaniment) is typical of many mid-17^th century English sources, such a Musicks Hand-maid, 1663 and 1673. 

26-28 Suite in D major. It seems very likely that suites of dances were played not only on plucked keyboards but also on the organ, certainly in the domestic setting, and it is suggested here, that they were also played on church organs, if not in divine service, then when demonstrating the instrument in a non-liturgical context, as organists were frequently required to do. The dance style was a common currency at this time and, given that it finds free expression in all types of Baroque Music, it must have influenced improvised liturgical music, too—if not in name, then in spirit. The registration chosen here is the great open diapason (the foundation of the entire instrument and its true ‘voice’) and the various flutes of 8’ and 4’ pitches. The variations of 27 and 28 are interpolated within the repeat scheme of each half of the original courante and sarabande (the latter, so called in the manuscript). For the rest of the manuscript each variation has been recorded as a separate piece and in Selosse’s order—that is, following the dance upon which each is based.

 The concluding pieces, also dances, do not fit the homogeneous arrangement of the suites according to key. The brief allemande in F major 29 stands somewhat alone while the next piece, an allemande in G minor 30, is expanded and developed in its companion variation which also shows distinctive similarities to the division techniques of John Roberts earlier style (US-NYp Drexel 5611). The two allemandes in C minor, 31 and 32, are both described in the Hogwood MS as being ‘fitt for the manicorde’ (i.e. for the clavichord.) Predominantly a four-part, consort texture, 32 has a sequential passage at the start of the second part which is closely related to 33, an Allemande and variation in F major.